The politics and promise of a pandemic treaty

 Covid-19 has shown just how ill-prepared the world was to fight pandemics as a unified unit. A proposed pandemic treaty, whose intentions some experts question, aims to change that.

  

8 February 2020: A bronze statue outside the World Health Organization’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, commemorates the 30th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox. (Photograph by Stefan Wermuth/ Bloomberg via Getty Images)

 

On 30 March, 25 heads of state including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa called for the creation of an international pandemic treaty through the World Health Organization (WHO) to strengthen global capacity to predict and respond to pandemic threats. The call was published as a commentary in newspapers across the world.

Those endorsing the commentary include leaders of both developed and developing countries – such as Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea, South Africa and Senegal. The commentary was also signed by WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the EU president Charles Michel. 

Ellen ’t Hoen, an expert on medicines policy and law, told Spotlightthat while multiple country leaders are now calling for a treaty, it was initially proposed by Michel during the November 2020 Paris Peace Summit. WHO’s Tedros told reporters on 30 March that the EU president “has championed the call for an international treaty to make the world better prepared to respond to pandemics and health crises”.

What will be in the pandemic treaty?

At this point little is known about what the pandemic treaty will entail, as it is still only an idea and its contents have yet to be proposed or negotiated. In their commentary on the need for a treaty, global leaders outlined their broad aspirations for the treaty, including fostering “mutual accountability”, “shared responsibility, transparency and cooperation” and “ensuring equitable and universal access” to health technologies. 

Tedros noted during the WHO’s 30 March press conference that while the contents of the treaty must still be negotiated by WHO member states, the WHO hopes the treaty will contain measures to enhance the “sharing of information”, the “sharing of pathogens” and the “sharing of technologies” between countries. 

30 March 2021: World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks to European Council president Charles Michel in Brussels, Belgium, during a virtual news conference. (Photograph by Dursun Aydemir/ Anadolu Agency/ Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The proposed treaty will seemingly seek to prevent the types of secrecy and go-it-alone approaches that have hampered monitoring and containment of Covid-19 from recurring in future pandemic responses. The treaty will also seek to build national, regional and global capacity for monitoring and sharing of data on future pandemic threats. 

The commentary also signals that the treaty will aim to prevent the vast access inequities we have seen with Covid-19. It states: “The Covid-19 pandemic has been a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe. We are, therefore, committed to ensuring universal and equitable access to safe, efficacious and affordable vaccines, medicines and diagnostics for this and future pandemics.”

To date, over 90% of vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries, while only 2% of vaccines have been administered in Africa. Doctors and nurses across Africa remain unprotected, while some wealthy countries are already vaccinating low-risk populations.

But can a treaty really make countries work together?

Some observers have pointed out that there are already international treaties obliging countries to work collaboratively in responding to pandemic threats and ensure access to health technologies in the developing world. 

Clare Wenham, a global-health policy professor from the London School of Economics, questioned in The Guardian why in their responses to Covid-19 “did governments not abide by international law and norms for pandemic management that were already in place?” Wenham explains that the International Health Regulations (IHR) already contain legal requirements for countries to share information about emerging pathogens and implement public health responses. The IHR is an international treaty first adopted by the World Health Assembly (a body made up of WHO member states) in 1969 and revised in 2005.

Mike Ryan, head of emergencies at WHO, told reporters on 30 March that the IHR is “without meaning unless countries are fully committed to its implementation”. The proposed pandemic treaty would however deliver a “higher level of political commitment to the principles in the IHR”, according to Ryan.

 source ; newframe.

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(With input from news agency language)

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